Sunday 2 Feb 2014

We joined a group of our new friends on a trip into Agadir by bus - which meant quite an early start for us. But before we left we treated ourselves to bacon and egg butties. Delicious!

The bus was packed and it was standing room only for the 30 min trip - which cost us the princely sum of 7Dh, about 45p! Ooh we are extravagant. From the bus station we walked up through the "old" town to the souk.

Perhaps we should mention here that Agadir doesn't really have an "old town", the area having been totally devastated at 2340 on February 29th 1960 by an earthquake, killing 12,000 people. We were told that most of the dead were buried in mass graves and the hill just to the north is their monument. The letters "painted" onto the hillside translate as "Allah: Country: King".

The town has been rebuilt mostly on a grid system which makes finding your way around straightforward. The dock area was rebuilt but there is still quite a lot of land that has been cleared but is yet to be developed.

The souk is a huge covered area now but, though laid out in straight lines, it still manages to convey the character of a typical Moroccan market, with stallholders selling everything you could imagine. A fruit and vegetable section has fine displays of the freshest of produce; there are spice stalls everywhere; stalls make and sell soap out of argon oil - there's a story about that later. Beautiful clothing, shoes, bags can stop you for hours just admiring. Of course if you do you are invited inside to inspect their best wares and if there is something you like then you can try your hand at haggling. And the best of luck!

But if you're squeamish avoid the butchery section!

The old problem of photographs is still here though - take a picture and you are likely to be pestered for money. The gaily adorned, bell-ringing water sellers are the worst.

From the souk we indulged ourselves in a taxi to the beach, it's actually quite a long way, where the seafront has been developed with modern hotels and restaurants with a lovely palm-fringed promenade. We chose a likely looking restaurant for lunch in the sunshine (no, not that one!)

Look carefully for a well-known brand name!

before enjoying a short stroll along the prom.

Some of our crowd

Now pronounce that very carefully!

The Promenade

The weather was fine and warm, with hazy sunshine but the breeze was off the sea and a little cool, so rather than try to find the bus station and endure another half hour, we indulged in a couple of taxis but at only £11 for four of us it wasn't exactly breaking the bank. No negotiations though, taxi fares are regulated in and around Agadir.

A welcome cuppa then chairs out to mop up the rest of the days now clear sunshine.


Oh yes, the argon oil. It comes from argon nuts which are inside a tough fibrous covering. These "fruits" are eaten by goats (which explains the pictures of goats up trees) and their digestive system removes the outside. The nuts are then collected from the droppings - yes, seriously - and then ground down and the resulting material is used for a variety of purposes; to make oil for cooking etc. or soap products are two of the uses we saw.